Going Too Far

by Jennifer Echols

  “Florence is seventy miles away,” came Grayson’s voice. “I don’t have enough gas to make it.”

  “Roger,” Mr. Hall told the radio. He glanced at the wind sock again.

  Alec and Jake had wrestled the unwieldy banner into a big, sloppy roll and plopped it on the porch, behind a rocking chair and against the wall, where it wouldn’t blow away. We all walked out to stand on the tarmac again and watch the plane fly parallel to the runway, then turn. Grayson would go through the same motions as on his first pass, but this time he would land.

  Or try.

  It wasn’t right that he fought through this alone. He and I had no bond, but I would have been the one in the plane instead of him if I hadn’t taken my turn first. Raising my voice over the wind, I told Mr. Hall, “Seems like there’s some advice you could give him.”

  Mr. Hall shook his head. “I’ve taught all of you correctly. Whether you learned it correctly or not, I don’t know. That kid never had the sense God gave a goat. He probably thinks this is fun.”

  True, Grayson was the live wire in the family, the adrenaline junkie who would do anything on a dare, who’d gotten in trouble in the past year for smoking, drinking, weed, speeding, skipping school—Mr. Hall had spilled it all to me while we were flying. Mr. Hall worried constantly that his ex-wife couldn’t handle raising Grayson on her own. Alec got in trouble only for refusing to rat Grayson out. But I doubted even Grayson enjoyed trying to land the plane in this windstorm.

  Worried as I was, what Alec was going through must have been ten times worse. Grayson and he looked nothing alike, and they’d never seemed close. Alec was closer with Jake, glomming onto Jake really, and Grayson was off by himself, getting into trouble. But Grayson and Alec were still brothers, and twins. I wasn’t surprised when Alec crossed one arm on his chest, propped his other elbow on that arm, and put his hand over his mouth.

  What did surprise me was that Jake put his arm around Alec’s shoulders.

  Over the loudspeaker, Grayson calmly announced his approach. The red plane dropped out of the sky, skimming twenty feet above the runway, then ten.

  I squinted and struggled to stand against a cold blast of wind. On that gust, the sound of the tiny engine drifted across the field to us. The motor suddenly roared in a higher pitch as the plane jerked to the left. Grayson was using the stick and the rudder pedals to fight the wind. I was fighting it too, sympathetically, my hands balled into fists, arms tense, toes curling in my shoes. And holding my breath.

  The plane made several more agonizing darts this way and that, wings jerking up and leveling off. Finally he was one foot off the runway, inches, then none. The plane landed as straight and level as if the wind were calm.

  Mr. Hall said, “Perfect.”

  The plane was still rolling fast when the wind swept under it and tipped one wing up to the sky, the other down to scrape the asphalt.

  “Damn it,” Mr. Hall barked. I made a noise too, something between a yelp and a scream, and Jake pressed one hand against Alec’s chest to keep him from running across the field. There was nothing we could do for Grayson, and nothing he could do either. Helpless, while someone chanted “No no no no no,” we watched the wing tilt as far up as it could go without the plane turning upside down. The plane seemed to be sinking then, the wind tiring.

  That’s when a gust caught the tail instead and spun the still-rolling plane all the way around backward in a ground loop, exactly what we’d all been afraid of and exactly why most people didn’t fly these old-fashioned planes anymore. The wind spun the plane all the way forward again, then lobbed it at the trees.

  Now we were running. Jake and Alec shot past me. I hoped they knew how to help Grayson when they reached him. All I could see was the bright red plane propped at an odd angle against the dark tree line. I concentrated on the tarmac under my feet, then the uneven ground where the grass hadn’t been cut since October, then the runway, with my usual bottle of water sloshing hard in my jacket pocket the whole way. As I got close, I remembered I had the phone in my other pocket. I pulled it out to dial 911.

  But all three of the boys emerged from underneath the wing: Jake first, then Alec, then Grayson. They were laughing.

  I stopped on the asphalt. My lungs burned so painfully that I almost bent over and braced my hands on my knees, but I didn’t want to do that where the boys could see me.

  I turned to yell back to Mr. Hall that Grayson was okay. He saw the boys too and slowed from a jog to a walk. He put his hand over his heart.

  As I walked down the short, grassy slope to where the airplane was lodged and the boys stood, Jake said, “I wish the Admiral had seen it. He would have recommended you for an aircraft carrier.” Jake worshipped the Admiral for his combat record.

  Grayson knew how special this compliment was. It showed in his grin. “Oh, pshaw, it was nothing.” Even his eyes laughed, which looked strange to me. I rarely saw Grayson without his aviator shades and his straw cowboy hat. They must be lost in the cockpit.

  “I wish we’d filmed it,” Alec said. “I wish you could have seen it yourself, Grayson. It seriously looked like you were about to lose it, what, three, four times?”

  “Six or seven times,” Jake said.

  “I don’t have to see it,” Grayson said. “But if we can get the tractor to haul the plane back onto the runway and it checks out, I’ll go again.”

  Jake and Alec hooted laughter. Alec said, “That’s exactly what I was thinking: ‘Grayson is probably enjoying this.’”

  “That’s what Dad was thinking too,” Jake said. He slipped into the imitation of Mr. Hall that all his sons could do so well. “‘That boy probably thinks this is fun. He never did have the sense God gave a goat.’”

  Their laughter quieted as Mr. Hall passed me on the grass. Grayson still smiled, but the laughter had left his eyes. He waited for his father’s verdict.

  I held my breath for the second time that afternoon. When something went wrong at Hall Aviation, it was usually Grayson’s fault, because he forgot a chore or blew it off. But Mr. Hall tended to blame him even when the problem was Alec’s fault, or Jake’s fault, or Mr. Hall’s own fault, or nobody’s fault at all. I had wanted to tell Mr. Hall this before, but it was not my place to say.

  Mr. Hall slapped Grayson’s shoulder, then moved his hand to the back of Grayson’s neck. “And that, son, is a ground loop.”

  They all burst into laughter again, Mr. Hall included. Grayson said sarcastically, “Thank you for the insight, Father.”

  “Let’s see what kind of damage you did to her.” Mr. Hall walked around the wing tip lodged in the grass, heading for the nose. Alec and Jake followed him, but Grayson stayed where he was. Now that they weren’t watching him, his blond brows knitted. He looked at the plane, then at the sky, and bit his lip.

  I whispered, “Are you really okay?”

  His gray eyes widened at me, as if he hadn’t noticed me standing there until now. He whispered back, “Actually, I think I’m going to hurl.”

  “I’ll cover for you.”

  He stared at me for a moment more, like he didn’t trust me. Then he turned and jogged toward the trees.

  I followed Mr. Hall and the boys around the wing and peered over their shoulders as they turned the seemingly undamaged propeller by hand, testing it. I waited until they noticed Grayson was missing.

  “Grayson? Where’s Grayson?” Mr. Hall called.

  I glanced back at the wing. “Uh-oh, the gas tank has ruptured.”

  “What?” Mr. Hall bellowed. He and Alec and Jake moved from the propeller to crowd around the wing. I pointed to a scrape as if I thought this indicated structural damage to the tank. They poked at the wing, ran their hands along it, fingered the joints. After a few long minutes, Mr. Hall looked up at me like I’d lost my mind.

  I felt Grayson’s shadow return behind me. “I guess not,” I said.

  All of them straightened and discussed the findings. Grayson stepped toward them without comment l
ike he’d been hanging around the other end of the plane the whole time. The consensus was that the plane was hardly damaged at all, but they wanted to tow it back to the hangar where they could get a better look before the rain came. Without glancing at Grayson, I handed him my bottle of water. He took a swig while the rest of them were talking and spat it on the grass.

  They all turned and sauntered back toward the hangar. Their laughter rolled back to me against the cold wind. It wasn’t like the boys had forgotten me, because I was never part of their family anyway. I was nothing to remember. But Mr. Hall had forgotten me completely, as if I hadn’t been standing next to him while we witnessed the wreck.

  That was only fitting. All three of his sons were with him at once. That hardly ever happened anymore. It was Christmas. And Grayson was safe.

  Without breaking his pace, Grayson looked back over his shoulder at me and mouthed, Thank you. He turned around again without waiting for my answer.

  A month later, back in Afghanistan, Jake would die in a jet crash. And Mr. Hall’s heart couldn’t take it. A month after that he would follow Jake to the grave. So in the end I was glad they had this one last family afternoon together, and I wasn’t loitering around the Hall Aviation hangar, polluting it.

  The phone rang in my back pocket. Still watching the Halls walk away, I brought the phone to my ear. “Heaven Beach Airport.” My voice shook. I held the phone at arm’s length and took a deep, steadying breath. Then I started again. I said into the phone, evenly and all better now, “This is Leah. How may I help you?”

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  Pocket Books

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  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2009 by Jennifer Echols

  MTV Music Television and all related titles, logos, and characters are trademarks of MTV Networks, a division of Viacom International Inc.

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  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Echols, Jennifer.

  Going too far / Jennifer Echols.—1st MTV Books/Pocket Books trade ed.

  p. cm.

  Summary: Forced to spend spring break in a Birmingham, Alabama, suburb riding along with an attractive rookie police officer on the night shift, rebellious seventeen-year-old Meg finds herself falling unexpectedly in love.

  [1. Conduct of life—Fiction. 2. Police—Fiction. 3. Panic attacks—Fiction. 4. Family problems—Fiction. 5. Death—Fiction. 6. Alabama—Fiction.] I. Title.

  PZ7.E1967Goi 2009

  [Fic]—dc22 2008035158

  ISBN-13: 978-1-4165-7217-6

  ISBN-10: 1-4165-7217-1

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